“The biggest evergreen games and WoTLK Gold the huge live-streaming games with deep social hooks, are gravity wells for player attention as well as time and money,” Piscatella said. “New games big and small will face a daunting task to break through.”
Piscatella was later quoted as saying that Game Pass and the new version of PS Plus should help games get noticed by a larger audience. “Why why don’t more AAA games release on the first day with sub services? They should. But the high development costs and the marketing budgets necessary to try and break through this wall of evergreens need high-risk sales targets in order in order to receive greenlight. These targets can be too aggressive, or overly demanding,” he said. “So folks are forced into “what we must believe scenarios regarding AAA publishing. They bet that sales will be on the higher range and even be outlier. The targets would need to be met to allow sub service inclusion.”
In this setting the option becomes apparent, Piscatella said. “Do the normal release, and see if the game is lightning in the famous sales bottle. If yes, great. If not, look into other revenue streams that are ancillary to the sub service inclusion , or traditional discounting methods,” he explained. “Including the game in a sub service isn’t something everyone can or wants to do. There are thousands of games available each year, but only a handful of them will be available on these services. Also, statements that are sweeping about sub services good or sub services bad are not getting to the important point.”
Piscatella added: “These services are another instrument in trying to get games funded released and assist them in breaking through the barriers of huge evergreen titles. The newest games entering this space need all the support they can receive to try buy WoTLK Gold and do this.”
